The Kremlin has hit back at the State Department after it closed three Russian consular offices in the U.S. in August, and Moscow's particular method of retaliation will make any city dweller gasp. Russia has decided to limit the parking spaces of American diplomats working in the country, who up until this point had enjoyed "special parking privileges," The Moscow Times writes.

"Parking spaces outside the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg had been painted over with a pedestrian crossing, and special parking signs had been removed outside the U.S. consulate in Yekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains," The Associated Press reports.

Russian diplomats working in the U.S. do not have special parking privileges. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that the reduction of American diplomats' parking privileges stems from an attempt to reach "full parity" with its counterparts in the U.S.

Lavrov's statement is clearly a stab at the State Department, which had ordered Russia's consulate closures by citing the "spirit of parity." Jeva Lange